An Ilyushin Il-76 transport plane operated by Syrian Air has disappeared from flight tracking amid uncertainty over the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Assad, who has served as the president since July 2000, has reportedly fled Damascus, after a lightning advance by rebel fighters reached the outskirts of the capital city early on Sunday morning.
The New York Times has reported that Assad has left the capital, but his exact whereabouts are unknown.
Without any available confirmation as to his fate, there is much speculation that Assad was aboard the now missing Il-76 (registration YK-ATA) that departed Damascus at 1:55 UTC on the morning of December 8.
The jet was operating as Syrian Air Flight 9218, according to tracking service FlightRadar24.
After take-off, the flight moved east toward the Syria-Iraq border, before swinging northeast toward Syria’s Mediterranean coast.
Russia, whose military support was instrumental in saving the Assad government from rebel advances a decade ago, maintains a strategic naval base at the Syrian port of Tartus.
No destination was listed for Flight 9218 at its time of departure. Available flight tracking data shows the four-engined jet passing directly over the now rebel-controlled city of Homs and continuing northeast, before abruptly reversing course as it reached Syria’s coastal mountain range.
The flight moved back toward Homs before disappearing from flight tracking at 2:32 UTC, less than an hour after take-off.
It is unclear if the aircraft stopped transmitting or if some unknown incident forced the jet down. Tracking data from FlightAware shows flight 9218 reached a maximum altitude of 23,650ft around 2:10 UTC, before moving into a steady descent.
The Syrian air force maintained an air base at Al-Qusayr in the vicinity of Syrian Air 9218’s last known position. That area is now within rebel-controlled territory and the state of the airfield is unknown.
Data from the aircraft’s final two minutes of flight shows a steady deceleration and loss of altitude. At its last known position, Flight 9218 showed an altitude of 8,725ft but airspeed of just 34kt (just under 40 mph).
FlightRadar24 has subsequently confirmed the Il-76 flight did take place and said it is confident the transmitted data ”in general give a quite good indication of what happened with the aircraft. The flight tracking service offered some possible explanations for the apparent disappearance of the jet.
“The aircraft was old with an older transponder generation, so some data might be bad or missing,” the company says. “The aircraft was flying in an area of GPS jamming, so some data might be bad.”
”We are not aware of any airports in the area where the signal was lost,” FlightRadar24 adds, according to FlightGlobal.
It remains unclear if there is any connection between the flight and the disappearance of Assad. Rebel fighters in Damascus have declared the city “free of Assad”, according to the New York Times.